Why does my WordPress multisite redirect to wp-signup.php?

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We occasionally hear reports from customers who use WordPress multisite and find that when they visit their site without the www. in the URL, like this:

http://example.com/

.... they get automatically “redirected” to this strange URL:

http://www.example.com/wp-signup.php?new=example.com

This can be caused by accidentally entering “www.example.com” as the network site name, instead of the correct “example.com”.

Unfortunately this is hard to change afterwards, so we recommend adding an extra redirect to your site, telling it to fix a missing www..

To do that:

  1. Login to the “My Account” control panel (having trouble?)
  2. Click Redirections
  3. Click Add New Redirect
  4. Choose the option to Redirect to or from “www”
  5. Make the rule be “When a request arrives for hostname example.com: Redirect it to the same page of https://www.example.com” (although you should change “https” to “http” if your site does not use SSL)

This will detect and fix the missing www. before WordPress multisite even notices it, avoiding the problem.